Source: CNN
By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
(CNN)The US State Department granted a Yemeni mother, whose 2-year-old son is on life support in an Oakland hospital, a waiver Tuesday to travel to the United States, according to officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Shaima Swileh will catch the earliest available flight out of Egypt and is scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, said Basim Elkarra, the executive director of the council’s Sacramento Valley chapter.
Money secured through a fundraising effort will pay for her flight and the boy’s funeral, he said.
The news came shortly after the boy’s father, Ali Hassan, appeared on CNN pleading with consular officials to expedite his wife’s visa application so that she’d be able to see her son one last time.
Hassan, 22, and his son, Abdullah, are American citizens, but Swileh lives in Egypt. Because she is Yemeni, she’s restricted from traveling to the United States under the White House travel ban.
Categories: America, Middle East, The Muslim Times, travel ban, USA, Yemen
